melkathi

Added some pertinent information, so people can make an educated choice - especially when wondering if they'll be able to find a friend for some friendly multiplayer.

Just filed a refund request with support. Maybe if it ever goes dead cheap I'll get it again, but only if it is really cheap.

Trying to decide whether I should refund Blood Bowl 2 or not. The pro: it is Blood Bowl The con: The AI in the one match I tried was worse than terrible. The skaven players would run back and forth, swapping positions for the same end result of marking my players, but having forced the AI to make dice rolls that could have failed: Example 1: Skaven Player A is marking Dark Elf Player A, while Skaven B is marking Dark Elf B. Skaven A didges away from Dark Elf A, rolling a dice and aiming for a 2+. Easy, but still a 1 in 6 chance of getting tackled and ending the turn. Skaven A, B and C now surround Dark Elf B. Instead of trying to hit my player with all the assists the AI brought in, Skaven B now dodges away from Dark Elf B, again on a 2+ and takes up the spot Skaven A had occupied next to Dark Elf A. Example 2: I kick the ball and it lands next to the Skaven Thrower. A Skaven player with agility 3 will pick up the ball on a roll of 3+. The Thrower has the Sure Hands skill and gets to re-roll that should he fail. Instead of trying to pick up the ball with the Thrower, the AI runs the Thrower away from the ball, and brings another player to the ball to pick it up instead. Mind you, the Thrower also has the Pass skill, meaning he gets a re-roll when passing the ball, making him a fairly good choice of player to pick up the ball after kick off - it is the reason why playbooks have him set up in the back... The UI is terrible. Or as some people say: There is no UI. The graphics look nice at first, but the highlight real reveals a hell of a lot of glaring clipping issues. I'll only play single player, as I play against humans in the tabletop version anyway.

In possibly alphabetic order: Agiel: Cold Waters Bendu: XCOM 2: War of the Chosen Hawke64: Furi Fenixp: Sunless Skies Keyrock: West of Loathing Marelooke: GuildWars 2

I enjoyed Dex. Not so much the combat mind you

Thoughts on XCOM War of the Chosen: It is more fun than the vanilla experience. The Lost are well made and give the proper zombie horde feel. Integrating the Ruler aliens as guards for alien facilities was a good idea. Covert ops allow you to further train and specialize your soldiers, and to help prepare rookies for combat missions. The story feels as if they ran out of budget after the introduction mission. You are only introduced to two of the three factions, and the whole thing was just screaming for more. On top of that, it seems almost impossible to recruit additional soldiers from the factions. The Chosen get a couple of cut scenes, but overall they too feel lacking story wise. They can add some danger to missions, and keep your on your toes, but mostly what they do is force the player to ignore the rest of the campaign and deal with them. As a result it is very easy to completely ignore the actual story and just kill the bosses, and kinda play the game in reverse: beat the boss encounters at the beginning, then kill time waiting for the game to end. I think it is the main issue of the expansion: they wanted to give existing players the ability to experience all the cool new stuff without having to spend hours redoing the old, but that way they messed with the campaign and story pacing, throwing it into disarray. Enemy Within was to me a better integrated experience.

I keep doing the "breakthrough" research in XCOM, since Tygan tells me that I either do it right away or miss the opportunity, but that way I keep putting off the Shadow Chamber projects. I think I may never finish this playthrough if the breakthroughs don't stop eventually.

Well, they still haven't gone into the fate of Dr. Valen after she disappeared in the novel. The Alien Rulers DLC didn't do anything for that. And WotC was very light on story. Great recruitment story mission early on, but then nothing.

"Zeit die Erde zurückzuholen"? Da hat sich ja einer Mühe gegeben bei der Übersetzung.

And just because we are talking XCOM:

Yeah, the SPARK lost out in War of the Chosen.

The neat thing is when your soldier is taking cover behind a wall that has a poster with their picture on it But vanilla XCOM2 already had something similar: the holoscreens would sometimes flash up Wanted posters with the faces of your soldiers.

I have only been able to get one additional Reaper myself. The problem with having to recruit them from Covert Ops, and getting random ones of those.

I wish though I have done a few rescue missions that had optional objectives to save more than just the VIP, and the resistance fighters saved in the missions joined XCOM as new recruits. Just got two maxed out Sharpshooters that way. early on in the campaign I had a mission where the VIP's guard was unconscious and one of my soldiers had to carry him to the evac. One of the nicer scenarios I played. Also really helped to get an experienced recruit as a bonus reward

That time when the resistance fighters took out a Chosen by themselves:

I'll never play this in Ironman. Not when the Chosen boss fights are this silly

I now always have the Reaper resistance order that stops the timer until you break cover. Makes the game much more enjoyable to be able to sneak around and set up an ambush without being rushed.

On normal (what's it called? Veteran?) difficulty my Templar is doing really well. But it really helps to have others boosting her with actions. She now starts at 1 Focus and has a max of 3. At full focus she often can one-hit in melee, which will give her a free dash. In missions where you are stealing ADVENT supplies and need to tag the crates before ADVENT does, the free dash is priceless. Similar in other missions where you are racing to interact with something. Now with a bond-mate using team-mate, or with a Skirmisher or Psi-Ops giving extra actions, the Templar can go on a murder spree, killing multiple enemies in one turn, always getting free moves. Mine tagged 4 ADVENT boxes in one turn just with her own actions and the one extra from her bond-mate. I need to check how her melee attack works with the Reaper ability she can get in the training centre.

When an expected very tough mission goes unexpectedly well:

Tried out the noise grenade to attract the Lost. It actually worked. There were a couple of Mutons covering in a building. I chucked a noise 'nade through the window and a Lost swarm broke through the door on the other side and surrounded the Mutons. While they didn't deal any significant damage, they did buy me time to take out the ADVENT Shield Trooper, Archon, and Heavy Mech.

Was in a mission and hacked an ADVENT terminal. As a reward I got to double my research speed. Awesome, since I was researching Plasma Weapons which were an 18 day project or so. A couple of day later one of the remaining Chosen - probably the Hunter - managed to sneak a saboteur into the Avenger and blow up part of the research lab, cutting my research speed by 50%. I sent a covert ops team to find a way into his citadel. Blow up my crib? I'll come blow up yours.

You mean Lost

OK, I'll upload a screenshot that isn't action camera, but from the propaganda poster system My SPARK unit!

Throwing Axe: Lost and found: Bewildered Chosen: Figure Diving: Faceles gets a face full of bullets:

XCOM2: Went to defend a resistance haven from an ADVENT attack. While the squad was being briefed on their way there, Central informed us that a Chosen was leading the raid. And he was right. In the immortal words of Admiral Ackbar: "It's a trap!". Resistance fighters were doing their best to keep their people safe. And this was no normal raid. The most "rank and file" troop the aliens had send was a Muton. Other than that, a Faceless, three Berserkers, four Chryssalids, and three Codex. And on top of that of course: The Hunter. The squad rushed to reinforce the resistance fighters. Together they made quick work of the first group of enemies and evacuated half the civilians. But the other half was surrounded and had a Faceless in their midst. And while the majority of resistance fighters, alongside the XCOM squad took out the aliens, one fighter climbed onto the roof of their shack and started shooting the Chosen. Hit, 6 DMG, rinse, repeat. When the last of the aliens were taken out (4 civilians were killed by a Codex and a Berserker), the resistance fighters rushed the Chosen and caught him in a crossfire. the Hunter went down without any XCOM operative ever having a chance to shoot in his general direction.